Top Distributors Keep Pace with the Market

A challenging marketplace motivates and inspires this years' top three distributorships

WorkflowOne's Five Keys to Success

LED BY PRESIDENT Dave Holland—a 25-year industry veteran from the ranks of the major directs—Norfolk, Virginia-based WorkflowOne (formerly Workflow Solutions) has captured the top spot in BFL&S' distributor ranking this year. Holland attributes the company's success to a five-point strategic plan that WorkflowOne's management team developed after a thorough review of operations.

"The first area we focused on is sales growth and retention, with a special emphasis on promotional items, commercial printing and print on demand. We have set up buying groups, both off shore and domestically, to facilitate the promotional products initiative, and have been aligning ourselves with those who we refer to as our certified trade partners in commercial print to help support our sales staff and customers in that area," said Holland. "As for the print on demand, we're not really interested in what could be considered commodity items, but rather, enhanced applications based on technology, such as direct mail projects and fulfillment."

Operational excellence is the second area that the team evaluated. This involved putting all of WorkflowOne's certified trade partners through a rigorous quality-certification process. Holland explained, "Typically, what we are asked by end-users when competing against major direct manufacturers is 'How can we be sure that the quality is there?'" He continued by stating, "We've introduced a Lean Six Sigma quality program to our certified trade partner network, and we're conducting onsite visits to verify that it is being carried out. We are also in the process of implementing RFID bar code warehousing systems, and will have all of our facilities done within the year."

Technology is the third, and a very important, component to the strategic plan. "We enhanced our iGetSmart platform, which is already a strong platform, with a Web-services portal," explained Holland, "and, we've already implemented the system in two of our sales offices, as well as in four of our customer accounts."